Jeff Kaftan, principal at Notre Dame School in De Pere, has found a way to turn his illness into a positive message for his students. / File/Gannett Wisconsin Media

Jeff Kaftan smiles when he thinks about an eighth-grader at Notre Dame Middle School giving a classmate a hug as a gesture of kindness.

It’s a bright side to a very difficult situation. And Kaftan definitely is a bright-side kind of guy.

Kaftan, 50, was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer over the Christmas season last year. Doctors determined the cancer started in his colon and moved to his liver. A series of chemotherapy sessions and a 10-hour surgery in April got out most of the tumors.

Some cancer since has been discovered in his liver and lungs, and he’s going through more chemo. Kaftan says he feels much better than he did a year ago, and he’s taking things one day at a time.

One can imagine it would be difficult to share this news with friends and family members. But as principal of a Catholic elementary and middle school, Kaftan also had to address the issue with kids ages 5 to 14.

“I really thought about, ‘How can I tell them and put a positive spin on it?’” Kaftan said. “I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me. I told the kids I was sick, and that maybe they wouldn’t be seeing me as much, but that they could use it as a positive.”

He sent a letter of explanation to parents, but didn’t tell students he had cancer.

“I told the kids they should do acts of kindness as a way of praying for me,” Kaftan said. “I said that could be their way of helping me heal. You know, prayer without action is really just words. I believe we all should be doing acts of kindness.”

School staff placed big jars in each of the schools where students could write about their acts of kindness. The project was dubbed “Kindness honors Kaftan.”

“We had hundreds of slips of paper, probably a thousand,” the principal said. One eighth-grader explained how he hugged a classmate. Others helped friends with homework, aided community members or said nice things to a teacher.

This school year, Kaftan plans to expand the program and rename it “Kindness Honors Notre Dame.”

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The idea is for students to do nice things not only to show support for a principal in a tough situation, but as a way to live their lives.

“I think there is so much written or talked about that has to do with anti-bullying,” Kaftan said. “And there’s nothing wrong with that, we’re anti-bullying too. But I’d like to see us being proactive. We should have higher expectations of our kids, that we expect kindness.”

One student has organized a coat drive and is collecting jackets to give to the needy, he said. Kaftan hopes kids will consider helping the elderly, too.

“A lot of times they are the invisible people,” he said. “We want them to feel loved and cared about.”

Despite the cancer, Kaftan continues as full-time principal. And he’s back to running every day.

“I feel 100 percent better than I did a year ago,” he said. Last fall, Kaftan first suspected something was wrong because he could barely run a mile. On Christmas Eve, he was so sick his family encouraged him to visit the emergency room, where a test indicated a mass on his liver.

Kaftan originally was told he had about a year to live, and that if he hadn’t visited the ER on Christmas Eve it could have been three months.

Today, he’s looking out about two years, and said once he reaches that milestone he’ll look to another two years.

“But people with cancer really learn to live just for today,” Kaftan said. “You do your best every day. You learn to let go of worries about things way out in the future that you have no control over.

“I think maybe this whole thing has been a blessing in disguise. I’ve really learned how many people care for me and are there for me.”

His goal now is to spread the care not only to Notre Dame schools, but to the community and beyond.